At the 1:05 mark in GTA 6‘s debut trailer, you can briefly spot a heavily tattooed man speaking to a judge via a webcam sentencing. This character seems to be based on a real-life Florida man who went viral in 2017 due to his looks and was dubbed the “Florida Joker.”
On December 5, 2023, Lawrence Sullivan—the Florida Joker himself—posted a video to TikTok in which he claimed Rockstar based the character on him and that they needed to “talk” to Sullivan. Then on December 11, Sullivan demanded Rockstar Games and its parent company Take-Two Interactive pay him $2 million.
“We gotta talk or [if] not you gotta give me like a mil or two,” Sullivan said. “Florida Joker ain’t having that, y’all took my likeness, y’all took my life.”
On December 13 2023, Sullivan claimed he was going to sue Rockstar over the whole situation. However, in March, he backed down and instead asked for a few hundred thousand to voice the character in-game. Rockstar has seemingly never responded to Sullivan’s threats or demands.
On December 5, 2024—a year after the trailer dropped—Sullivan uploaded a video on TikTok claiming his threats of a lawsuit were just him trolling. He then claimed that he was the reason the GTA 6 trailer was so popular. This saga continues.